Mother Teresa’s doubts
Well, now, isn’t this — Letters Reveal Mother Teresa’s Secret — interesting?
A quote: “…it has emerged that Mother Teresa was so doubtful of her own faith that she feared being a hypocrite…”
It strikes me as fascinating both because it reveals the ways in which individual faith truly is a battleground for the forces of light and dark, and because it’s going to be used & misused by folks to make points, counter-points, and a whole lot of outrageous assertions.
I also find it interesting as (potentially) an illustration of Rome’s problem wrt Grace & the role that good works play. If Mother Teresa was a good Roman Catholic, then she most likely took quite seriously the teaching that her works, while not earning her salvation per se, were certainly necessary in order to augment the Grace that was infused at baptism.
That’s not a comforting teaching at heart, for it replaces the Gospel with the Law, and the Law breaks us down, stripping us of any/all hope.
Even in the depths of our despair — and we will be faced with despair & dark times, for this world and its prince will assault us in the effort to “win” us — if we stay focused on the cross & Christ crucified, God will comfort us & salve our wounds with that Balm of Gilead. And thus bound up & transformed, He will work through us to produce good works. Works that represent the fruits of being saved, not tokens that can be redeemed for getting saved.
It strikes some as a distinction without a difference, but it’s not. It can be the very difference between comfort and torment, between Heaven and Hell…
-ghp
Least religious countries
Fascinating statistics in this article/paper on the levels of “organic atheism” & the like.
Somehow I think Bp. Giertz would be aggrieved by Sweden’s #1 ranking, and Scandinavia taking 3 of the top 4 spots…
The top 10:
1. Sweden (up to 85% non-believer, atheist, agnostic)
2. Vietnam
3. Denmark
4. Norway
5. Japan
6. Czech Republic
7. Finland
8. France
9. South Korea
10. Estonia (up to 49% non-believer, atheist, agnostic)
-ghp
Theistic evolution is contradictory
Over at Lutherama, the good Dr. has a very good posting outlining precisely Why Evolution and God Driven Creation Cannot Co-Exist.
Round about 10 or so years ago, I had worked myself into a place where I thought that theistic evolution was OK. I wasn’t as well read as I am now (not that I’m all that deep now, it’s just that I try harder…), and I was smack in the middle of my 12 year southern exile, during which I was living down where there were “Babdists” & heathens, and where being Lutheran got you looks almost as dirty as if you said you were Catholic. 
On an intellectual level, theistic evolution was a nice compromise. It wasn’t as “evil” as straight-up Darwinism, but it allowed for some rational compromise by what “observable scientific facts” had told us just had to be true. Besides, I thought, if God was omnipotent, then we certainly shouldn’t limit Him by saying that theistic evolution wasn’t possible.
I was wrong.
Certainly God could work through an evolutionary process. It’s just that He told us that He didn’t. The Bible is clear on that — God’s own Word uses clear & simple language to describe how He created the world (our “young earth”) in 6 24-hour days. We (i.e., our sinful human intellect) might not be willing or able to fathom it, but that doesn’t change the reality. God is not limited by our broken state & sin-based lack of understanding. He allows us to take comfort in His simple & clearly stated Word.
We don’t need to understand or know, we just need to trust and believe. That is how God comforts us & holds us close to Him.
Yay!
-ghp
Mass musings
So, I had occasion to attend a Roman Mass this past weekend, having traveled to a downriver Detroit suburb for a wedding on my wife’s side of the family. I took it as a chance to engage in a little theological anthropology, if you will. Fortunately, my wonderful wife is nicely reformed (pun partially intended) from her lapsed Roman upbringing, and is solidly in line with my misgivings about taking our kids to such a Mass, and supported me fully in my attempts to educated our kids on the fact that we were attending a service that was not to be equated with attending a service at our home church — IOW, we were observing not participating. I tried to make the best of it by making it a “teachable moment”…
Interestingly, the Priest was really pretty good. He actually takes being a Roman Catholic seriously. And while I undoubtedly have some severe disagreements with him in terms of Justification, Christology, Sacramentology, & Mariology, I’ve got to give him his props for hewing to the Papal party line. He clearly stated that Communion was not open to non-Roman Catholics or Roman Catholics who were “not in a state of grace”. (Closed Communion — what a concept!), and very clearly called for a return to chastity and an end to abortion. So I’ve got to give him props for that, too!
Oh yeah, and he wasn’t American (at least by birth). He’s only been a priest for 6 years, and he has only been here in the States for part of that time. If I had to guess, I’d say that he was of either Caribbean or African birth. It’s too bad for Rome that they aren’t producing more solid American priests like Fr. Aloysious. Why, I bet he’d make a heck of a Lutheran!
The usual, obvious, stuff that Rome has wrong showed itself during the Mass, e.g., marriage as a sacrament & making offerings of intercession & whatnot to Mary. The pernicious head of Vatican II also reared its ugly head, with laywomen reading the first two lessons, and (way odd to me) the mother of the groom assisting in the distribution of Communion. He took the sacrament seriously enough to close it, but not so seriously that he didn’t willingly let his priestly office be usurped. Odd…
The worst, though, came during the homily. It started strongly enough, likening the love in marriage to that of Christ. “Sacrificial” was ok, because husband & wife should lovingly sacrifice for each other, as Christ did for His bride. I’m now blanking on the second example (didn’t have my HipsterPDA with me!), but it was ok as well. The third example/analogy, however, was where the good father lost me — “Salvific”. The husband & wife were now responsible for ensuring the salvation of the other, as Christ did with the Church. Yikes! If’n I had known that I’d be on the hook for that, I might not have taken those vows 17.5 years ago! 
Seriously, though, that really showed to me in pretty clear relief the flawed theology that Rome has wrt Justification, Grace, & (to a lesser extent) the Sacraments.
At least it was a Christian service. There were some significant errors in theology, doctrine, & practice, to be sure, but at least it was still observably Christian.
But I’m glad that I’m Lutheran!
-ghp
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